Living in brownstone South Brooklyn, we walk everywhere. There is always something to look at. This is an Italian Catholic neighborhood; a casual atmosphere of bathtub Marys and various saints lounge in the front yards. Some are well-attended, brightly white, watching over manicured lawns. Others crumble in silence, their owners old mainstays in a swiftly…

“A world created out of silence gives itself over to prayer.” I’m listening to local painter Debra Korluka discuss her work: the icons she’s painted since she was a child studying in the Ukrainian Orthodox church. I’m interested in the symbolism of an icon’s composition and in the paints—their colors, chemistry, poisons, and history. All…

This summer in Paris, on the morning before we flew home, I took my husband to Sainte-Chapelle, the medieval Gothic chapel on the Île de la Cité, right in the heart of Paris, a few streets over from the Notre Dame. A friend had brought me to Sainte-Chappelle years before. In the few free hours we…